This invention concerns a process for the adjustment of various components of a relay.
Modern motor vehicles, which have a multiplicity of electronic apparatus, particularly employ, among other components, relays. In this regard, small size, or small structure, relays, so-called microrelays, that only require a small amount of mounting space, and therefore can be particularly easily integrated into complex electronic circuits, are increasingly preferred.
Naturally, a very reliable operation and long life span is demanded when microrelays are employed. At the same time, the manufacturing costs of such relays should, of course, remain low. Therefore, the manufacture of microrelays presents the following problems:
For large structure relays generally, manufacturing procedures are preferred which can be carried out without adjustments of assembled relay components, because adjustment-process steps increase costs.
Particularly small microrelays require, compared to large relays, an especially exact fabrication process. The individual relay components can therefore, as is required by their size, have only very small manufacturing tolerances so that the fabrication of microrelays is relatively expensive. Experience has shown that, for the manufacturer of microrelays, it is more expedient to allow larger manufacturing tolerances when manufacturing individual relay components and then, because of this, upon assembling the components, performing adjustments, particularly adjustments of positions of the components relative to one another.
This proves to be particularly cost-effective if adjustments can be made in a fully automatic manner during assembly.
In this regard, a process is disclosed in German Offenlegungsschrift DE-OS 32 35 714, for example, in which a position of a contact spring can be adjusted with the help of a laser beam. That is, a high-energy laser beam is directed by a calculator control optical deflection apparatus toward predetermined (i.e. calculated) points on the contact spring to be adjusted. The respectively illuminated, or energized, points, are dependent upon an instantaneous position of the contact spring relative to a desired position thereof. The instantaneous position of the contact spring is, in a further embodiment of this process, monitored by an electro-optic recording apparatus, for example a CCD-Matrix Camera. By means of the Laser energy it is intended that the contact spring will be deformed in a calculated manner by this selective heating so that it is brought to a desired position.
German Offenlegungsschrift DE-OS 32 35 714 suggests a rather expensive process which makes possible only the adjustment of relay components which can be deformed by means of local heating. The application of this process to adjust relay components is substantially limited to adjustment of a contact spring.
This process is also necessarily expensive because a very precisely functioning optical deflection apparatus is required for steering the laser beam and in that an algorithmic interdependence between the illuminated point, illumination time, and a targeted deformation of the respected component to be adjusted must be exactly known for controlling the deflection apparatus.
It is an object of this invention to provide a process for adjusting a relay of a type comprising a base plate, an L-shaped fixed contact terminal, a switching contact spring supporting an armature, and a magnetic system (which is comprised of a yoke, core, and coil) (as is, for example, disclosed in German Offenlegungsschrift DE 27 05 961 A1, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,295,078) which makes possible the adjustment of various relay components in an uncomplicated, cost-effective and fully automated manner.